Rora
Okay, just run through it again. Try and remember. What’s your name? R...Rosy....no, it’s Rora. Okay, Rora. How old are you? Sixteen or seventeen? Oh my god, I can’t even remember my age! My heart is beating so fast, and my breathing is even faster. Calm down Rora, please. It’s not going to help you if you’re freaking out. Remember, if it’s something you can’t recall, it musn’t be important after all. Look around. Where are you? The room is so dark and cold it feels as though you mightn't be inside the room at all, but rather cramped between the walls, intermixed with the concrete and bricks. It’s cold too, as cold as the bottom of the ocean, even. Maybe you are at the bottom of the ocean, and maybe that’s why you can’t see anything. You're stuck at the bottom of the ocean. That’s why you feel so cramped, because of the water pressure. No one will find you down here. You’re going to spend the rest of your life cold, alone and afraid. Unless of course something more sinister lurking in the ocean finds you first. And then you’ll hear it, feel the water move around your skin and the temperature change. See a dark mass floating above you. Just be thankful it’s too dark to make out its face... Stop it, Rora! Please, it’s not helping! Now I’m breathing too hard again. My heart is pounding against my rib cage. Even it wants to escape this place. Could I really be at the bottom of the sea? No, that’s impossible, Rora. People can’t breathe underwater, I think. How long have I been here? Far too long to have still been keeping count. Days, weeks, months, who knows? It’s all become one great big blur of blackness. One thick, dark memory for as long as time has existed. I can’t remember how I got here, or why I’m here or where ‘here’ even is. I just know that I’ve been here for as long as I can remember, and whoever I was before this place probably doesn’t exist now. Are my eyes open or closed? I’m pretty sure that they’re open. I’d know if my eyes were closed, right? If they were closed I’d be asleep, and then I’d be dreaming. This place is not a dream, it’s the complete opposite. No, my eyes have to be open, surely. It’s as if I can see the blackness. It’s as if I’m looking into the darkness, instead of experiencing a recreation of the shadows your mind has conjured up while you're asleep. It seems too real to be a dream. Don’t cry, Rora. Please don’t cry; it’ll be alright. Someone will find you eventually. This room is only so big after all. Maybe whatever is making that strange clicking noise over in the corner will make its way over to you soon. It sounds like it’s pretty big, too. Surely it’ll be able to discover me sooner or later. Click. Click. Click. The same rhythm it’s been making since forever. Click. Click. Click. The clicks are about two seconds apart, and have never fluctuated in pace ever. Something is sitting in the corner and clicking, forbidding me any sleep. And it has been sitting there and watching me for an eternity. It feels like a hundred years that the darkness has kept me prisoner. And not once have I ever found out what that clicking thing is. Now, as I think about it like that, I’m not entirely sure I really want to find out either. I try to talk to it, try to cry, and try to scream. I’ve been trying ever since I got here. For some reason my body likes to disobey me. It’s not that I feel as though I can’t scream, just that I won’t. I’m too scared to, even though I’ve tried before. I guess my body isn’t disobeying me; it’s actually doing what my subconscious wants. Except for today, however. My body wishes to be in this confinement no longer. Without even thinking about it I feel myself piercing the darkness as I stand. My limbs betray me, having not stood for so long. And the first time I try, I fall to the ground in an embarrassing heap. Wait, I hear something. My head shoots up. Is the clicking getting closer? My heart leaps into my throat, and instead of walking forward, I’m now backing away. I feel the air suddenly change and shift in direction. The room is so small and airtight that as soon as something moves it displaces the air. Now I know something is definitely with me. The clicking is now faster. Was it always here with me? Why can’t I remember these things? Who put me here and why? The questions are now frantically buzzing around in my head like a group of angry bees after their nest has been disturbed. But nothing stings me with an answer. Calm down, Rora. If it’s something you can’t recall, it mustn’t be important after all. If it’s something you can’t recall, it mustn't be important after all. If it’s something you can’t- Why has the clicking stopped? It stopped just then, out of nowhere. The air is shifting again. Something darker than the darkness is moving towards me slowly. It has no shape, just a dark black mass slowly making its way over here. My heart is pounding against my ribs again, longing to be free of this nightmare once and for all. A wave of rotten plants and food has flooded my nostrils with its stench, making breathing through my mouth now a requirement. Suddenly the thing stops. It has heard me breathing. It changes it’s angle slightly. Now the clicking has begun again. I back away, finding no wall to press against as the room I’m in suddenly seems to expand and grow. When did that happen? Was it always that way? Oh my god, what’s my name? What is my name?! Sliding along the ground, my hands digging into the concrete, pushing my bottom backwards and away from the thing. As for my name? It doesn’t matter anymore. If it’s something you can’t recall, it mustn’t be important after all. I can’t see anything in the darkness, which now seems solid. As if the darkness itself is suddenly able to occupy rooms and exist in a compact form. As if the darkness itself has suddenly become alive. Suddenly I back up against something. Something sharp hits my finger, and I turn towards the source of my pain. A sharp, shiny object, no bigger than my littlest finger, is lying on the ground. A steady trickle of blood is now oozing from my hand. I grab the object, and turn to look up at what I've backed up against. Before I can scream, her face is in front of mine. Her long black hair cascades over her face and tickles mine, as it mingles with the surrounding shadows. I can’t tell where she begins and the darkness ends. She seems to be made from it. The yellow slits where her eyes should be are piercing the compacted darkness and staring into my own. I can see Hell itself in them, but I can’t seem to look away. My mouth opens and I feel my vocal cords tighten to scream, but nothing comes out. Suddenly, she grows, seeming to have absorbed my fear and made it her own. I can see two dark points ending in wispy shadows protruding from her scalp. A collar of blackness surrounds her neck, and then becomes the darkness as it merges with her shadowed body and compacted blackness that surrounds me. Suddenly, her mouth opens to reveal a row of yellow teeth, even more so than her fiery eyes. Her cold, rough hands take hold of my skinny throat and begin to squeeze. My life is draining from my weakened body, and her arms only get stronger as they absorb my fear. I know now that I’m going to die. Either this thing is going to kill me, or my heart will break through my chest and land on the stony floor below. The woman begins to whisper. “Prick, prick, prick, prick.” She whispers in time with the clicking which is rapidly approaching me from behind. The insane woman laughs hysterically in a deep voice as the last of my life escapes my body. I turn my weary head to see the darkness behind me form a wheel, with each turn of its body producing a loud click. Suddenly, she lets go. I feel a warm pressure against my lips. And now the darkness is carrying me. I turn and look down, her shadowed hands changing their form, growing to try and reach me; the maleficent woman just barely touches me as I rise. She screeches as my body turns to face upwards, and then the darkness becomes a brilliant white light. I am suddenly awake, and a man is standing over me, a look of concern written across his face. “Are you alright?” he asks. “I’m Phillip. Well, Prince Phillip actually. Do you know your name?” “Rora,” I whisper under my breath, my name suddenly flooding back to my thoughts. “My name is Aurora.”